Debt of Ages Read Online Free PDF

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    Blossoms swirling in the wind of our passage as we rode through the spring under a cloudless sky when the world was young . . .
    Armies grinding together in a roar of pain and terror and blood . . .
    The circle of faces wavering ghostlike in the flickering campfire . . .
    The still lake . . . the sword tumbling end over end through the air, flashing in the westering sun, dazzling my eyes so that I nearly miss the ripples spreading from where it had struck the water—where surely it must have struck the water . . .
    Sarnac's head jerked upward from his desk, spinning with the disorientation of sudden awakening. For an instant his skin prickled as he looked beyond the pool of light from the desk lamp into the shadows. Then he shook his head in annoyance as the familiarity of the office registered. Served him right, working late and falling asleep at his desk!
    He shook his head again, to clear away the last cobwebs of sleep. What was he going to do? He couldn't fight a war distracted by insomnia! He knew he'd been resisting sleep lately, since the recurring dreams had ceased to be the once-in-a-while thing they had been over the years. But eventually his body's need caught up with him—like just now. And the dreams would come again, leaving him with an aching need to find a missing part of himself.
    What's the matter with me? In the Middle Ages they would have said I was being tormented by demons. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries they would have said the same thing, only phrased in terms of their established religion of psychoanalysis. Either way, I could have gone to the local priesthood and gotten sprinkled with holy water or psychobabble. Nowadays, we've finally admitted that we really don't know diddly about what goes on underneath the surface of the human mind—which is wise but not too awfully helpful. Tiraena had always been a willing listener but an uncomprehending one, for she had never had such dreams herself. It was something she couldn't really share with him, and that inability had come more and more between them. And, at any rate, she's not here now.
    He straightened. He certainly wasn't going to get any more work done tonight. He needed to get back to his quarters; maybe, having gotten in its licks already, the dreams would leave him alone for the rest of the night. He stood up.
    It was then that he saw the figure in the open door, silhouetted against the light from the outer office.
    "What the . . . who are you?" he demanded. There shouldn't be anyone else in this office, they'd all gone home earlier.
    Instead of answering, the figure stepped forward into the private office, entering the circle of light from the desk lamp. He was a nondescript middle-aged man in nondescript civilian clothes, medium-tall and ethnically unidentifiable—he might have had some Raehaniv blood, but Sarnac couldn't be certain. What was certain was that he had no business being here. I'm gonna have a few words for Security , Sarnac vowed to himself . . . but then the thought died as he realized he was feeling the same thing he always felt in Captain Draco's presence: a tantalizing certainty that he had seen the face before, in the country of his dreams.
    The man smiled gently. "Good evening, Admiral Sarnac. I apologize for approaching you in this manner. But you're an important man, and it was the only way I could catch you alone."
    "If you're a reporter, this is not the way to get an exclusive interview," Sarnac snapped. "And you never answered me. Who are you? And how did you get in here?" He made the unobtrusive jaw movement that activated his implant communicator, and was about to subvocalize a call to Security when the stranger replied.
    "To answer your questions in order, Admiral, I am not a journalist; and my name is Tylar."
    "Just . . . Tylar?"
    "Actually, my full name is rather long. But 'Tylar' is quite sufficient."
    "I'm relieved." It didn't come out as sarcastic as Sarnac